Kinderguardians
by NetRaptor
Summary: Connor and Reuben are children of Guardians, growing up in the Tower. Connor is a Guardian and Reuben wishes he was. But when Reuben begins sensing Darkness from the Guardian tutoring them, the boys uncover a series of criminal activities happening right there in the Tower, unknown to the adults. Sequel to both Wanderer and The Littlest Guardian.
1. Chapter 1: A sense of Darkness

"Guardian Harper is a servant of the Darkness," said Reuben.

"Oh yeah?" Connor replied. "Prove it."

The two boys sat on the shore of the lake within the walls of the Last City. Each were armed with a fishing pole, and gazed raptly at their lines in the water, despite the lack of any interest from the fish.

Reuben voiced his observation after a long silence. He was a pale, thoughtful boy, scrawny for his ten years, with blue eyes that seemed to look through, rather than at people.

"I can't prove it," he said. "It's just a feeling I get sometimes, especially when Guardian Harper has his ghost out. They don't like each other."

"My mom fights with her ghost sometimes," Connor replied. "She doesn't serve the Darkness."

"Your mom's ghost is a jerk," Reuben agreed. "But Guardian Harper ... there's just something off. I'm glad he goes on assignment next month. Your dad's a better teacher."

Connor was a chubby eleven year-old, his skin the color of coffee with a dash of cream. He was also a future Guardian, already attended by a ghost. She floated nearby, a little robot in a rounded, child-safe shell. Her single blue eye was half-extinguished in a sleepy expression.

Connor grinned. "My dad is a lot more fun. Like when he showed us the Battle of Twilight Gap in Light constructs."

"That was awesome," Reuben agreed. Then he sighed. "I wish I could be a Guardian."

Connor didn't reply. Reuben said this sometimes, and Connor could never think of something to say that didn't sound mean. Although Reuben's father was a Guardian, Reuben was not - or, at least, no ghost had ever come for him.

Connor's ghost, Varan, blinked her blue eye. "It doesn't matter whether you are or not, Reuben. We love you anyway."

A tinge of pink crept into the boy's pale cheeks. "Thanks, Varan," he said. "Have you noticed anything about Guardian Harper?"

Varan paced back and forth in midair, and both boys watched her. "I'm not sure," she said at last. "He and his ghost are having problems, but I'm not certain he's involved with the Darkness."

"See?" Connor said. "Ghosts know everything."

Reuben nodded and watched his fishing line. "It's why I wished I had one."

They fished a while longer, catching nothing but lake weed. Then Varan said, "Four o'clock, boys. Time to head back to the Tower."

The pair reeled in and folded up their rods. Then they crossed the lakeside park to the nearest bus stop, where they waited. The sight of two children accompanied by a ghost was enough to make other people give them a wide berth. Children of Guardians were uncommon, but not unheard of, and one did not mess with them.

"When we get home," Connor said, "I've got to show you my latest glider design. I built a scale model, and it flies great."

"A new one?" Reuben said. "The wings fell off the last one."

"I found new documents in the Archives," Connor said, his eyes gleaming with fanatic delight. "It helps that Mom and Dad are warlocks. They have all the passwords. This new glider looks like a real ship, and the wings are anchored right into the frame."

Reuben shifted his weight uncomfortably. "Would it be strong enough to carry you?"

"I did the math," Connor said defensively. "I know I weigh a lot, but this glider is meant for a grown man. I'm nowhere near that much."

"Will your mom let you build it?"

Connor rolled his eyes. "Of course not, dummy. I'm still on restriction from tying Neko to the ceiling fan."

Reuben swallowed a laugh, imagining a ghost being flung around and around a room. "My Dad would kill me if I did that to Wand."

"Wand's nice," Connor agreed. "I'd never do that to him. Neko had called me an ungrateful hell spawn. So I got him back."

Reuben glanced at Varan. "You were okay with that?"

Varan blinked. "I stayed out of that one. Boys have to settle things sometimes."

The bus arrived. The boys paid their fare and climbed aboard.

"I'm almost tall enough to ride Dad's sparrow," Reuben said.

"I can reach the pedals on Mom's," Connor said proudly. "I can drive it, too."

"No you can't."

"Yes I can! I'll show you next time Mom and Dad go out. I'll give you a ride, and we'll explore the City. Maybe go see a movie."

Reuben imagined a colossal wreck where Connor's ghost resurrected him, but Reuben stayed dead. "Maybe."

The bus dropped them at the Tower bus stop. The boys walked the short distance to the Tower lift, where they waved to the guards. Connor and Reuben were a common sight around the Tower, and everyone knew them on sight. The guards waved them through.

The lift carried them ten stories upward, to the top of the Last City's wall. Here a large section of wall and a hanger had been repurposed into a new Tower space to replace the old one that had been destroyed in the Red War. The boys mingled with crowds of Guardians and civilians as they made their way toward the dormitory stairs.

"Anyway," Connor said in a low voice, "I found the perfect place to build the full sized glider. I'll show you tomorrow, after school. This is the best hiding place ever ..."

Reuben tried to listen. But a chill was creeping over him, and Connor's chatter was becoming background noise. Reuben halted. The ground seemed to vanish from under his feet. He was standing still, surrounded by people. Yet he was falling, falling through the void, toward dark water.

Varan noticed. She spun toward Reuben and swept him with a healing beam.

Without a ghost of his own, Varan couldn't heal Reuben as she could her own Guardian. But the touch of her Light snapped him out of the vision, grounding him in the reality of the Tower. He drew a gasping breath and stared around. "What was that?"

"What?" Connor said, oblivious.

Reuben shivered. "I just want to get home."

* * *

Reuben told his mother and father about the vision at dinner.

Despite being a Guardian, his father, Charles, worked only in the Tower or the City. The Vanguard respected his wishes to stay with his family, and found plenty of things for him to do nearby.

Reuben's mother, Naomi, was big and pregnant, her delivery date only a month away. She and Charles listened to their son's story in dismayed silence.

"What do you think it was?" Reuben asked.

Charles and Naomi exchanged a long look. Then Charles sighed. "We'll make an appointment to have your Light checked. You might be a Guardian, after all."

Reuben straightened, brightening. "I am?"

"You might be," said his father. "Don't get your hopes up."

"Even if you have the Light," added Naomi, "it may take years to find your ghost. And it might never happen."

Reuben ate his dinner and thought about this. Creepy visions would be worth it if he could be a Guardian. Having a ghost like Varan would mean he'd always have a friend nearby to share thoughts with. He'd often thought that Varan was wasted on Connor - he took her for granted and didn't talk to her much.

What Reuben wanted was a ghost like Wand - his father's devoted, intelligent ghost who joined in conversations like a family member. Right now, Wand floated over his father's shoulder, listening, wearing a green shell with gold trim.

Reuben addressed him. "Wand ... if I don't find a ghost, will the visions get worse?"

"I don't know," the ghost replied. "You've only had one so far. You may have been responding to external stimuli. Or the Traveler may have been speaking to you. It's hard to say."

The Traveler! Reuben shivered a little. Connor's father, Jayesh, reverenced the Traveler and conversed with it often. Overhearing him talk about it had filled Reuben with holy fear since he was a toddler.

"I don't want the Traveler to talk to me," he said in a low voice.

"Like he said," Charles replied, "it was only the one time. It probably won't happen again." He glanced at his ghost. "Make an appointment for Reuben to have his Light measured."

"Working," Wand replied, and vanished.

"Don't worry so much," Naomi said, reaching across the table and stroking her son's cheek. "Finish your dinner and we'll read more of our book."

Reuben cheered up and obeyed. His mother was reading him books she had found in the archives, fantastic adventures about pre-Golden Age children solving mysteries in the ancient countries that no longer existed. He loved every word.


	2. Chapter 2: Plots

The next day it rained, and Guardian Harper canceled school, citing a sore throat. The boys went to Connor's apartment to play.

Connor's mother, Kari, welcomed Reuben in. "So glad you could make it! I got out the craft supplies for you children. They're in Connor's room."

Reuben would have preferred video games, but Connor was still on restriction from them. Crafts were a decent second option.

Connor shared a room with his little sister Stephanie. She was seven, with long black hair, and already hard at work cutting up paper at a tiny table between their beds. She wasn't a Guardian, either - as far as anyone knew.

Reuben folded several paper airplanes, decorated a mask for himself, and doodled a ghost in red pen. He daydreamed about chatting to his own ghost, asking it questions, watching it appear whenever he called. He kept this secret hope to himself-he didn't want Connor to get excited about something that might not happen.

Connor brought out his scale model glider. It was an arrow-shaped craft with a frame made of bits of wood. Connor threw it into the air. It drifted across the room, perfectly balanced, until it hit the far wall.

"Let me try!" Reuben exclaimed.

They played with the glider until the wings were too bent to fly anymore. Then Kari called them for lunch.

Guardian Jayesh was there, his grin very white in his dark face. His warlock robe hung on a hook beside the door, dripping rain water beside a pair of soaked boots.

"Welcome to spring in the Last City," Jayesh said, hugging Connor and Stephanie. "Hello, Reuben. I saw your father today. You feeling all right?"

Reuben nodded, words fleeing his brain. He concentrated on the sandwich Kari set in front of him. Of course, warlocks would know the most about strange visions, and Charles and Jayesh often worked together. But Reuben didn't want to talk about it in front of everyone.

Jayesh didn't ask any more questions. He and Kari discussed Vanguard business that sounded dull and adult. Beneath their conversation, Connor whispered to Reuben, "After lunch, I'll show you this great place I found."

Reuben nodded.

* * *

That afternoon, the rain still poured down in a cold, gray sheet. Beneath his raincoat, Reuben's shirt and pants grew inexplicably damp.

Connor led him across the Tower walk and down the side of the hanger, perilously close to the edge of the wall.

"Where are we going?" Reuben asked him, glancing out at the City. Fortunately, the rain hid how high up they were, and all he saw was a blank gray curtain.

"The old Tower's still blocked off," Connor replied. "But I found a way around the barricades."

"We're going to the old Tower?" Reuben's heart beat faster. "What's it like?"

"Burned up!" Connor replied with enthusiasm. "But there's plenty of places still standing where we could build the glider. Nobody goes in there except a salvage crew on Mondays."

Reuben picked his way along the narrow walkway, keeping close to the wall, away from the ten-story drop. The wind swirled his raincoat about and drove droplets in his face. Connor, on the other hand, forged ahead without fear. But then, Connor feared nothing, due to his ghost instantly healing every cut and bruise. She was invisible at the moment, keeping out of the rain.

The walkway ended in a waist-high concrete barricade. The boys scrambled over it. On the other side was a metal staircase leading up into the old Tower. The new Tower walk connected a short distance away, blocked off with a temporary fence and warning signs. But the boys were on the inside of the fence.

Reuben didn't ask how long it had taken Connor to figure out an alternate route. Half an hour, maybe.

"This way!" Connor exclaimed, running up the stairs. Reuben followed him.

The stairs zigzagged up into the old Tower. They ducked through a spot where the stairwell ceiling had partially collapsed and been shored up with bits of splintered lumber. Rainwater dripped through and plinked on the metal stairs.

Reuben and Connor climbed up into the Tower proper. They picked their way through a burned-out area that might once have been shops, and finally arrived in the Tower courtyard.

The pavement had been upended in huge slabs, the central buildings reduced to mounds of rubble. Paths had been beaten into the ruin by salvage crews, and several doorways off the courtyard had been cleared and opened, the spaces beyond them dark and mysterious.

To the adults who had once lived and worked there, the ruined Tower in the rain was a depressing place. But to two boys, it was heaven. They explored each of the wings, exclaiming to each other about what they knew of the Red War from school and the Solstice holiday, which had been observed every year since the attack.

"We could stake out any of these rooms and build a glider," Connor said. "But mostly, I want the hanger. Come and see!"

The old hanger had taken a direct hit during the initial bombing, and most of it was caved in on itself. Several crushed ships had been cut open by salvage crews, their engines and instruments gone. But Connor had located several light aluminum bars that would work for a glider's frame. He'd laid them out in the proper shape in an open space behind one of the wrecked ships, hidden from anyone who walked in.

"All we need is tools," he said with a maniac gleam in his eyes. "We can screw these together, then attach the webbing."

Reuben looked doubtfully at the bars. "What will you use as webbing? Not paper, right?"

"Fabric!" Connor replied. "I know where they keep the tarpaulins for the new Tower."

"You're going to steal one?" Reuben exclaimed.

"No," Connor replied with exaggerated patience. "I'm going to borrow one. How good are you at sewing?"

Reuben imagined forcing a needle through the thick canvas. "I can sew a little, but I think it'll be pretty tough."

"I can, too," Connor replied. "Sewing's no big deal - just a lot of stitches, right? I can get needles and thread, no problem. Now we only need-"

He stopped. Voices echoed distantly from the courtyard.

Instantly both boys dove beneath the wrecked ship and crawled into the darkness on their bellies. They lay there, side by side, peering out. Great hiding place or not, the old Tower was still off-limits. Being caught would mean the Vanguard's displeasure and severe punishment from their parents.

A Guardian and a ghost entered the hanger, dripping rainwater and arguing. The boys recognized their teacher, Guardian Harper. He was a tall, thin human, a warlock who did double duty as a Cryptarch. His shoulders were slightly stooped, and he walked with a limp that his ghost never could seem to heal.

"I don't care what your reasoning is," his ghost was saying, her voice sharp and intense. "It's evil and you have to stop."

"It's not evil," Harper replied. "It's business. You didn't think it was bad out in the Reef."

"That was different," his ghost snapped. "This is the Tower. You can't do that here."

Harper crossed the hanger, leaving the boys' line of sight, but they heard him rummaging through something metal. The noise covered what else his ghost said, but a moment later, Harper returned, his arms full of machine parts.

"Look," he was telling his ghost, "this has nothing to do with that. It's just a way to make some extra glimmer, and it's not hurting them."

"You don't know that!" his ghost exclaimed. "You haven't asked and you haven't tested it."

They departed, their voices echoing across the courtyard.

Connor and Reuben remained in hiding for several minutes in silence. Then Reuben said, "Were they talking about us?"

Connor said, "I don't know. He didn't sound like he had a sore throat, either."

"Wouldn't his ghost heal it, anyway?"

Connor tilted his head a little, listening to his ghost inside his head. "Varan thinks we should tell someone."

"But wouldn't we have to mention we'd been here?" Reuben asked. "My Dad will kick my butt clear to the south gate."

Connor bit his lower lip and gave Reuben a worried look. "Mine will, too. And I'm still on restriction."

"Maybe it was nothing," Reuben said hopefully. "I mean, he was building something. You saw all that stuff he got. His ghost probably just doesn't like it."

"Maybe he's making his own glimmer drill," Connor said, brightening. "That's super illegal. Man, I'd love to see it in action."

They crawled out from under the ship, Reuben with misgivings - Connor had better not try building a glimmer drill after he finished the glider.

"We can investigate at school tomorrow," Connor went on. "If something's weird, then we'll tell. Sound good?"

"Sounds good," Reuben said, less enthusiastically. Guardian Harper was very strict and wouldn't take kindly to his students poking around the workshop where he taught. Suddenly the old Tower seemed full of shadows. Reuben glanced around the dark hanger. "I want to go home."

"Me too." Connor led the way back into the courtyard, pausing to peer around at each doorway. "Besides, I want a snack."

Reuben didn't reply. He cared less about snacks and more about escaping the shapeless darkness that lurked at their heels.


	3. Chapter 3: Missing ghosts

The next morning, Reuben had his Light level checked before school.

Reuben's mother took him downstairs to the medical ward, where a warlock ushered them into a dark room.

"Stand there," he said, indicating a small platform with a black screen behind it.

Reuben stepped onto the platform, jittery with excitement and nerves. "Will it hurt?"

"Of course not," said the warlock. "A photometer is a sophisticated camera. Now, stand still for a moment."

Reuben watched the warlock step behind a machine like a huge video camera with five lenses. This was it. In a few minutes, they'd know if he was a Guardian or not. He didn't know which he wanted worse. On one hand, he sort of wished his life would stay the same old boring, safe life it had always been. On the other hand, being a Guardian meant he could hunt for a ghost. Of course, he may not ever find one, but at least he could try.

Once he had a ghost, he could fight aliens, learn to use weapons and Light, and lead the crazy adventurous life of a Guardian. So many possibilities opened up. But Reuben wasn't sure he wanted that, either. He'd be content with having a ghost to talk to.

The camera made a buzzing sound. The warlock stepped out from behind it and tapped his tablet's screen for a long moment. Reuben waited in suspense.

"Congratulations," the warlock said in a bored tone. "Your spark measures at the thirtieth percentile, just within Guardian range."

"What's that mean?" Naomi asked.

"It means his spark is quite dim," the warlock replied. "Difficult to see. Ghosts will have a hard time noticing him. But he does have the Light, and it may brighten in time."

Reuben's stomach clenched in a mixture of excitement and disappointment. A Guardian with a dim spark. No wonder no ghost had found him.

He followed his mother back upstairs to the Tower walk. She hugged him. "I'm so proud of you. A Guardian, just like your father!"

"Mom," Reuben said anxiously, "he said ghosts will have a hard time noticing my spark. What if I never find one?"

Naomi gazed at him and sighed. "I don't know. Once you're grown, you'll be able to hunt on your own. I'll ask Kari how they found Connor's ghost. He would have died at birth without her, you know."

They headed along the walk toward the little shop where the boys had their lessons. Reuben trotted at his mother's side. "Connor would have died?" He hadn't heard that story.

"Birth defects," Naomi replied. "His ghost had to heal him in the womb. Now, don't worry so much, Rue. You have a good, long life ahead of you, and I'm sure a ghost will arrive at some point. But there's more to life than ghosts."

Reuben couldn't explain his desire for a close friend to talk to. He and Connor hung out because they were the only children in the Tower, and Connor's mind didn't work like Reuben's. He was forever occupied with the logic of designing and building things, whereas Reuben operated intuitively and empathized with people.

Reuben was a little late to class. Leaving his mother to make his excuses to Guardian Harper, he slid into his seat at a table beside Connor. The workshop had three rooms, and the classroom was only the front one. The walls were lined with shelves. These held school books, texts on various subjects, rolled maps, bird nests, interesting rocks, and a glowing blue crystal that Reuben didn't like.

Connor was already bent over an arithmetic work sheet, puzzling out a word problem. Connor liked math and always finished long before Reuben did. But he was hopeless at anything having to do with reading or spelling, which were Reuben's top subjects.

The rest of the workshop was Harper's actual shop where he worked on mysterious Cryptarch affairs. The boys were never allowed in the other two rooms because he said it was too dangerous. Now, Reuben gazed at the closed door leading to the rest of the shop and wondered what Guardian Harper had done with the salvaged machine parts.

Harper returned from seeing off Naomi, stooped and limping a little beneath his robes. "So, you're a Guardian," he said to Reuben. "Good for you."

Connor looked up, eyes wide.

Harper shook a finger at Reuben. "Guardians still have to know their mathematics." He slid a worksheet in front of Reuben and passed him a pencil. "You have twenty minutes."

Groaning inwardly, Reuben applied himself to the mysteries of pre-algebra. Guardian Harper settled himself in a chair across the room and pulled out a tablet, which he tapped on while the boys worked. If they had questions, he would help them, but today, nobody spoke.

Beneath his concentration on the numbers, Reuben felt around inside himself, trying to locate his spark. Could a person feel their own spark? It was dim, so maybe it would be hard to detect. He did feel the usual discomfort from the blue crystal on the shelf. It oozed a chilly sensation that set his teeth on edge, but Guardian Harper didn't believe him.

He did pick up another strange feeling, but it wasn't coming from inside him. It was like a high-pitched ringing sound that vibrated in his chest, and it came from behind the closed workshop door. Reuben had felt it before. Harper said it was caused whenever the probability forge was running. Well, it was certainly running today. Their teacher was busy encoding matter into the encrypted state called an engram.

Connor silently pointed at his own answers with his pencil. With a sideways look at Harper, Reuben copied them down. The boys had a long-standing agreement to copy off each other as long as they didn't get caught, which was about half the time.

As they finished and handed in their papers, Guardian Harper said, "All right, we're moving on to science. Who can tell me what a Faraday cage is?"

Connor's hand shot up. "It's a grounded mesh designed to block electromagnetic interference, sir."

"Right," Harper said. He stood and lifted a folded wire mesh off a shelf. He spread it on the table. "Today, I'm going to let you try sending various types of signals through a Faraday cage. One of you will wear this and attempt to receive signals from the other."

The rest of the morning passed enjoyably, with the boys trying to send everything from radio waves to electric shock through the mesh. It blocked everything. Even a ghost couldn't pass through it, because their phasing ability worked on electromagnetic principles, even though it was powered by Light.

"The only thing a Faraday cage can't block," Harper said, "is Light itself. Watch." He draped the mesh across his right hand, then conjured a burst of blue Light straight through it. "This is because Light isn't part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It is paracausal, which means it is from outside our universe and follows its own laws."

"Outside our universe?" Connor exclaimed. "Is that where the Traveler came from? Another dimension?"

This led to a discussion speculating about the origins of the Traveler, which nobody knew, anyway.

"Does the Traveler speak to people?" Reuben asked anxiously.

"Only since it awakened," Harper replied. "It seldom speaks with actual words. Mostly it communicates in visions or dreams. Many Guardians have said the same things."

"My Dad says it uses words with him," Connor said.

Harper's nostrils flared. "Guardian Jayesh is ... unique. The Traveler has never spoken to me in that way."

Reuben blinked. Was their teacher jealous?

He pondered this as Harper dismissed them a little later. For one Guardian to envy another for speaking with the Traveler ... maybe Reuben had nothing to fear, after all. Maybe having the Traveler speak to him was a good thing.

But Reuben kept feeling dark, scary things, not good things of the Light. Why had he had a vision of falling through darkness into water? Was the Traveler trying to warn him? If so, of what?

"Have you ever heard from the Traveler?" Reuben asked Connor.

Connor's round face scrunched. "Yeah."

"What was it like?"

The boys moved to the Tower railing. The Traveler hung among the clouds, a moon-like orb with chunks of its crust floating around it. Blue Light gleamed through the holes.

"It didn't speak, exactly," Connor said. "It showed me a tree and a flower. A little tree. With three branches. I can't describe it right. Dad said it was how the Traveler sees me."

"As a young tree?" Reuben said. That was the kind of thing he expected from the Light. An enigmatic but nonetheless wholesome vision.

"Yeah," Connor said. "It was weird. I was just sitting there in my room and suddenly I see this tree. I don't want it to happen again." He suddenly grinned and punched Reuben's arm. "You're a Guardian, too! We'll have so much fun when you get your ghost!"

Reuben forced a smile. "I can't wait. But how do people find ghosts? Don't you have to meet the right one?"

They walked back to the dormitories, discussing what they knew of Guardians and ghosts. Connor brought out Varan to get her opinion.

The ghost studied Reuben. "I see what they meant about your spark being dim," she told him. "I'd never have noticed it if I wasn't looking for it. But don't worry. I've seen Guardians with dim sparks who had ghosts. You just have to meet the right one."

"But how do I do that?" Reuben asked, frustrated. "All the ghosts around here already have Guardians."

Varan looked at Connor for a moment, then gazed at the Traveler in the distance. "I'll talk to Neko and Phoenix. We'll think of something."

Slightly more hopeful, Reuben told Connor goodbye and went home.

* * *

That night, Reuben lay in bed, listening to the murmur of his parents' voices in the next room. It was a peaceful sound, and usually put him to sleep. He was beginning to doze when his father's ghost appeared beside his bed in a sparkle of light.

Reuben jumped. "Wand?"

"Shh," the ghost said, glancing furtively at the open door. "I'm not supposed to be here. But you're a Guardian, and I thought you should know."

Reuben sat up, staring at the ghost. "What?"

Wand flew a little closer, speaking in an undertone. "Us ghosts have begun asking around for a ghost for you. We understand how badly you need one."

Reuben's heart beat a little faster. "Did you find one?"

"There's a problem," Wand said. "Quite a few unattached ghosts have come to the Tower in the past few weeks. They all disappeared."

"Disappeared?" Reuben whispered. "Did they die?"

"None of us can figure it out," Wand whispered. "The Tower is a safe zone. Ghosts die in the wilds, but not here, so close to the Traveler. None of us have heard from them since they arrived. They may be dead, or they may be trapped somewhere. We ghosts know how you boys explore. Keep an eye out for them."

Reuben gazed into Wand's blue eye. "Don't tell Dad. About ... places we've been."

Wand's eye shifted into a smile emote. "Don't get hurt out there, and we won't."

"Right." Reuben gazed at the ghost, thinking about this news. "You think my ghost might be here somewhere?"

Wand flew in a little circle, the ghost equivalent of a shrug. "Whether one of them is yours or not, they're still in trouble. If you find out anything, tell Varan and she'll notify the rest of us."

Reuben nodded. Wand bade him goodnight and vanished.

Missing ghosts in the Tower somewhere! Reuben lay back and thought about all the places in the Tower where nobody went. Unused corners, empty rooms, all the space in the old Tower where Connor wanted to build things ... and Reuben's own disturbing visions.

Maybe the Traveler had been trying to tell him about the missing ghosts. Maybe one of them was his, hurt or caught somewhere. He vainly tried to parse this with his own sense that something was wrong with Guardian Harper, but couldn't quite do it. Maybe he'd sneak a look into the back rooms at school. Somehow.

It took a long time for Reuben to fall asleep. When he did, he dreamed again about falling endlessly toward dark water.


	4. Chapter 4: Glider

"Missing ghosts?" Connor exclaimed in excitement.

The next day was Saturday, and the boys had a whole weekend to work on the glider. Connor had procured a tarpaulin, which the boys had spread out on the floor in the old Tower's hanger. Connor crawled about on his hands and knees with a tape measure and a piece of chalk, puffing. Reuben told him about the ghost situation from the sidelines.

"We have to find them," Connor said, sitting back on his knees. "Varan, any idea where to start?"

His ghost appeared over his shoulder. "All of us ghosts have been talking about this since last night," Varan said. "And I mean every ghost in the Tower. We've already explored everywhere and haven't found a sign of the missing ones."

"Define 'everywhere'," Reuben said.

"The entire structure," Varan said, blinking. "Even inside the walls."

"People's rooms?" Reuben said.

"Well ..." Varan hesitated. "Each ghost looked around their own Guardian's quarters. Obviously we can't intrude on people's privacy."

"How about Guardian Harper's workshop?"

"His ghost already investigated," Varan said. "No missing ghosts."

Reuben sighed, crestfallen. He had been so certain he was right. His dreams of the night before lurked at the back of his mind.

"But that makes it even stranger," Varan went on. "We know the ghosts who vanished. They didn't just leave - they're silent. Ghosts go silent sometimes, but not in groups. Any help you want to give is appreciated."

"Have you told your Guardians?" Reuben asked.

"Yes," Varan said. "Most shrugged it off. A few expressed concern, but no one is doing anything about it. Guardians are busy with, I don't know, defending Earth and the City."

"That leaves us," Connor said, slapping one pudgy fist into the other. "We're Guardians, right? Saving ghosts is a great first mission. Reuben, let's explore this Tower from top to bottom."

The boys first looked around the hanger, but there wasn't much to find, with half of it still caved in. They set out into the other wings, hunting carefully behind piles of debris and peering through holes in floors and walls.

No ghosts came to light, but Connor found more materials for his glider. He hauled them back to the hanger, leaving Reuben to wander the courtyard.

"I know you're out there," he said to his future ghost, very softly. "I wish I knew where to look for you. I hope you're not hurt."

The thought of Guardian Harper nagged at him. His ghost had sounded so angry ... of course, she might have been arguing over almost anything. But if her Guardian was kidnapping ghosts, wouldn't she have said so to the other ghosts?

Leaving Connor occupied with his glider, Reuben sneaked out of the old Tower, back down to the new Tower, and made his way to the little office block where Guardian Harper had his workshop. But the door was locked. Disappointed, Reuben drifted back to the old Tower and set to work on the glider.

Connor had cut up the tarpaulin by this time, and was struggling to sew the thick fabric around the frame. Reuben helped. The boys speculated about lost ghosts, and sewed until their fingers were too sore to hold the needles. Then they headed home for dinner.

Sunday morning, as early as they could, the boys headed back to the old Tower. The only reason their parents didn't question their absence was because their ghosts could contact Varan at any time. She assured them that the boys were in the Tower and building a project, which satisfied the adults.

The boys stitched and stitched until lunch. Then Reuben, sucking his sore fingers and enviously watching Varan heal Connor's hands, said, "Can't we do the rest of the seams with industrial tape?"

Connor's face lit up as if Reuben had offered him candy. "We have a whole roll at home! Be right back!"

Reuben sat beside the half-finished glider, wondering if he was about to seriously regret that suggestion.

Connor returned, breathing hard, his round face beaded with sweat, despite the cool breeze. "We can get this done today! Do you want to take the first flight? I'd let you!"

"No thanks," Reuben said. "I don't have a ghost who can resurrect me."

Connor laughed. "You think my glider will crash? It won't crash! It's uncrashable!" He set to work doubling the cloth around the frame and securing it with yards of tough silver tape.

In a surprisingly short amount of time, the glider was finished - a twenty foot arrow of thick cloth over a metal frame. Connor lifted the glider above his head. "Look how light it is! It wants to fly right out of my hands. Look, this bar here on bottom is how you ride it."

It was a single crossbar. Reuben looked at it with misgivings. "Shouldn't you have a harness?"

"I can hold on," Connor said. He carried the glider out of the hanger to the wrecked courtyard, Reuben trailing behind.

Varan appeared, her blue eye concerned. "Connor, I don't know about this."

"Come with me!" Connor urged her. "We'll go for a flight. It'll be great!"

Varan flew around the glider, scanning it. "How far do you plan to go?"

"I'm going to ride it down to the new Tower," Connor said. "I'll land right in the middle of the courtyard. It'll blow people's minds!"

Reuben hung back with the feeling of watching a sparrow crash in slow motion.

Connor went to a gap in the railing, holding the glider up by its crossbar. "Film this, Varan!"

"I suppose we do need evidence," the ghost muttered. "Your parents will want to know how you died."

"Don't be such a wet blanket," Connor snorted. Then he ran forward and leaped off the edge. His ghost accompanied him.

Reuben gripped the railing, his stomach shriveling under his ribcage. The City was distant and blue in the afternoon sun, while Connor and his glider were clear and dark. The glider dropped twenty feet, then caught the wind and soared out into space. Connor dangled from the crossbar, his feet swinging. He tried to angle the glider to one side, but dipped the wing too sharply. The glider lost its balance in the air and sliced sideways. Reuben sucked in his breath.

The glider fell a long way, caught the air briefly, then fell again. Far, far below, it slammed into the ground, sending up a cloud of dust.

Reuben groaned. His friend never would have survived that. But his ghost would revive him any minute, so it wasn't like he was gone forever. Reuben didn't know how to feel. Mostly, he was scared of how much trouble they'd be in.

Down below, the glider shifted and Connor crawled out from under it. As he stood up, a sparrow shot toward him from out of the City streets.

Reuben squinted. Uh oh. It was Connor's mother, Kari. Varan must have notified her. Kari jumped off the sparrow and ran to Connor. First she hugged him. Then she smacked him and began shouting. Reuben thought he could hear her from all the way up in the Tower.

He waited until Kari and Connor climbed on the sparrow, leaving the glider in ruins. Then Reuben sneaked out of the old Tower and ran home. It was only a matter of time until he was in trouble, too.


	5. Chapter 5: Engrams

Reuben wound up grounded from playing with Connor, once his father stopped laughing. Connor was forbidden to leave the apartment for a week, and lost every privilege he had. Reuben found this out during a whispered conversation at school on Monday.

After school, without Connor's schemes to keep him busy, the afternoon stretched long and boring. Reuben wandered around the Tower and thought about missing ghosts. If only he could check out the workshop, just to satisfy his own curiosity. Then he could brag to Connor about his adventures tomorrow.

Reuben took a roundabout route, stopping at the railing to look out over the Last City and the Traveler, roaming by the Crucible signup corner to listen to Lord Shaxx's sales pitch, then down the shopping district to check the daily ramen special. Eventually, he wound up outside the alcove leading to the workshop school. He tried the doorknob. To his surprise, it turned easily, and the door opened. Reuben peered inside.

The school room looked the same as it always did, with its smell of pencils and paper. The school supplies and books occupied their usual places on the shelves. There was no sound of anyone inside.

But something nagged at him as he looked in. Something was different. Reuben slipped inside and closed the door. The schoolroom enfolded him in musty silence, the school table slightly dusty. What had changed? What had he sensed?

It took him several minutes to realize that the blue crystal was missing - the one that bothered him with its sense of relentless cold. Its spot on the shelf was empty.

It was a relief that it was gone, but at the same time, where was it now? Guardian Harper had showed it to the boys as a curiosity in their first week, then stuck it on a shelf and seemed to forget about it.

His curiosity mounting, Reuben crossed the room to the interior door, the workshop he wasn't allowed to enter, and tried the knob. Unlocked. He eased it open and peered inside.

It was a dim, cluttered room with one small window, high up, near the ceiling. Reuben ventured inside to have a better look around.

Workbenches lined two of the walls, but they were completely hidden under tangles of machine parts, coils of wire, old bottles, glass globes, a pile of old warlock robes, stacks of books, and broken electronics. No wonder Guardian Harper didn't let them in here. Connor would go crazy and probably build a bomb.

There was no sign of any ghosts, or the blue crystal. But when Reuben closed his eyes, he felt a touch of the crystal's cold from the next room. He opened the door to the adjoining room.

This room was entirely dark, but he immediately spotted the blue crystal glowing on a table across the room. Other things glowed beside it. Reuben fumbled at the wall until he found a light switch.

The probability forge filled most of the room. It crouched in the back corner, a metal dome large enough to fit a grown man inside. Pipes and wires snaked along the walls, feeding through various valves with mysterious markings, and disappeared into the walls. It was quiet today, the lights dark, the valves registering no activity. In the other corner stood an electronic cradle and screen for decoding engrams.

Reuben ventured toward the table and the glowing things. The crystal sat on a folded cloth by itself. The other things were white engrams. Each resembled a ten-sided dice the size of his head. They were encrypted matter. They were mostly used to store and conceal the weapons and armor that Guardians used.

A engram usually had an icon on the side that indicated what type of object had been encoded. White engrams were low security, so the items they contained must not be particularly valuable. Reuben picked one up and turned it over. An armor icon flashed from the topmost facet.

The forge had been running at school yesterday. It must have been encoding these. Reuben set the engram down and explored the rest of the room in growing disappointment. No sign of any missing ghosts. His teacher's ghost had told the truth.

The outer door opened in the school room.

Reuben's heart lurched. There was no way out except back through the cluttered workroom. Guardian Harper would walk in and find him in the forbidden workshop. Reuben would be in the worst trouble of his life.

There was a small space behind the probability forge, in the back corner of the room. Reuben scrambled over the dome's cold metal and slid into the tiny space. He crouched there, trying to quiet his panicked breathing.

The workshop door opened, and Guardian Harper's distinctive limping footsteps entered. He went to the table with the engrams and turned them over, faintly clinking.

"Well?" he said in a low voice.

"All encoded successfully," Harper's ghost said sulkily. "The Light persists. But that doesn't mean it'll continue."

"Let's find out, then," Harper said. "It's no good to us if the data doesn't translate out of encryption."

Reuben listened as Harper took an engram to the decryption machine in the corner. Being low security, the machine made short work of it, and the engram made a whooshing sound as the matter converted back into its original shape.

Something screamed - a descending, shuddering sound that faded into an agonized gasping.

Reuben jumped and craned his neck, trying to see around the forge without giving himself away.

Guardian Harper and his ghost stared into the decryption machine. Something moved inside, then went still. Harper reached in and lifted out a ghost.

It lay in his hands, its blue eye flickering. Harper's ghost swept it with a healing beam, but the ghost's eye faded into darkness.

"I told you!" Harper's ghost shrieked at him. "It doesn't work! The Light won't persist through the decryption process!"

Reuben cowered behind the forge. A ghost had been inside that engram. And decrypting it had killed it. He'd seen it die. He clenched his hands together and tried to crouch even lower as horror ate its way through him.

That might have been his ghost. And it had died. He wanted to scream and cry and run away from that stuffy little room. He never wanted to see Guardian Harper again.

The decryption machine was running again. Another ghost being decrypted. Reuben stuffed his fingers in his ears so he wouldn't have to hear it scream.

But this time there was no scream. The ghost emerged from encryption, stammering, "What-what happened? Where am I?"

"Excellent," Harper said. He casually grabbed the ghost, lifted it out of the machine, and stuffed it into the darkness beneath the encryption machine. "See, some of them survive the process."

"A fifty-percent mortality rate is still failure," his ghost snapped.

Reuben sat stock-still, listening, as two more ghosts successfully emerged from their engram prisons. They, too, were stuffed away somewhere. Then Harper approached the forge, talking about modifying the settings.

Harper's ghost, flying above her Guardian, looked over the forge, straight at Reuben.

"Light," she muttered. "Reuben is behind the forge."

"What!" Harper exclaimed, circling it. He spotted Reuben, and his face contorted in fury. "You sneaking bastard! You were back there the whole time?" He lunged at Reuben.

Reuben was already terrified. He leaped straight over the forge, higher than he'd ever jumped in his life, grazed the ceiling, and hit the floor running.

Harper flung a bolt of lightning after him. It struck Reuben in the back and sent pain through his every nerve. He staggered, hit the wall beside the door, and couldn't seem to wrap his fingers around the knob.

Harper grabbed him by both arms. "Oh no you don't," he snarled, lifting Reuben off the floor. "Not after what you've seen."

More lightning blasted out of his hands and into Reuben.

Reuben screamed like the ghost, and his consciousness fizzed into nothing.

* * *

He awoke on the floor in the room with the forge. Reuben's hands and feet were tied in front of him with what looked like twenty feet of rope. His whole body shook with the after effects of the electric shock.

Guardian Harper was gone, and the probability forge was running. It made that awful, high-pitched sound that vibrated in his chest. Being in the same room with it was worse than hearing it from the school room. And wasn't it dangerous? He'd heard once that a probability forge could kill you just by being near it too long.

Reuben lifted his head and tried to sit up, propping himself up with his elbows. "Is anybody there?" he dared to call. He was so shaky, he could barely hold his head up.

"Hello?" a voice replied. "Who's there?"

A ghost's voice. Reuben laid his head on the floor again. "It's me. Is Guardian Harper gone?"

"I don't know," the ghost replied. "I can't see anything from in here. Are you the child he captured?"

"Yes. Were you encrypted?"

"Yes," the ghost whimpered. "And he's going to do it again. The other two are already in the forge."

Reuben clenched his fists and teeth. "I knew Guardian Harper served the Darkness."

"Does he?" the ghost asked. "I wish I'd known that. He said he'd help us. And here I am. Do ... do you think you could free me? I don't want to go in the forge again. Being encrypted is a nightmare. A real, living nightmare."

Reuben struggled to sit up again. His whole body felt like oozy syrup. He managed to roll onto his elbows and one knee, where he wriggled into a sitting position. Then he scooted to the decryption machine.

There was a cabinet beneath the machine that had a black curtain instead of a door. Reuben caught it in two fingers and lifted it aside, having to clumsily move both arms at the same time. Beneath the curtain was a familiar-looking brass mesh. A ghost looked through it at him, its blue eye imploring.

"A Faraday cage," Reuben breathed. "You can't escape it, can you?"

"No," the ghost said. "I can't call for help, either. The catch is down here, on the outside." He flew to it and illuminated the catch with his scan beam. "Can you work it, tied up like that?"

Reuben fiddled with the catch. The rope was so tight that his hands were cold and turning numb. He could barely grasp the tiny metal loop long enough to slide it sideways. After much fumbling, he finally clicked it open.

The ghost nudged the door open and flew out. "Thank you, Guardian," he exclaimed. He flew to the forge and scanned its instruments. "The other two are nearly finished. Then Harper will be back." He started to scan the blue crystal, but backed away from it. "Light repression crystal? No wonder I was too weak to escape the first time. Ugh!"

He spun and looked at Reuben. "I can't leave you here. You're only a child. What can I do?"

"Find something to cut these ropes," Reuben said. He sat on the floor, leaning against the decryption machine's frame, still too weak to attempt escaping.

The ghost disappeared through the wall, into the workroom. A moment later, he returned. "There's plenty of sharp objects in there, but I can't lift them. I can get help. Who should I call?"

"Wand, my Dad's ghost," Reuben said. "Tell him where I am."

"Right," the ghost replied. He circled the room once. "There. I contacted him. He's communicating with your father. But I think - Harper's coming back." He flew down in front of Reuben. "I have to get out of here. Hang tight. Help is coming."

Reuben gazed into the blue eye. For a split second, he slipped back into the vision of falling toward dark water. But this time, a point of bright light was there, too.

The ghost flinched, blinking rapidly. "What was ... you ... oh no. Oh no."

The door opened in the outer workshop. Limping footsteps advanced toward their door.

"Go," Reuben whispered urgently. "Go, quick!"

The ghost flew toward the wall, then hesitated, looking back at him.

"Go!" Reuben whispered furiously.

The ghost phased through the wall and vanished just as Guardian Harper opened the door.


	6. Chapter 6: Diamond

Harper saw Reuben sitting beside the empty Faraday cage and scowled. "I tie you up, and you still meddle! That ghost escaped, didn't it?"

"The game is up," said Harper's ghost.

"I'll say." Harper hurried to the forge, which was winding down, the awful noise dying away. He opened it, reached inside with a pair of tongs, and pulled out two white engrams. He placed them in a shoulder bag he carried at his side. "No time for testing them."

Harper turned to Reuben, picked up a roll of tape, and taped Reuben's mouth shut. "Can't have the brat calling for help." Then he scooped up Reuben and flung him over one shoulder with casual strength. "Ship, please, Dana."

Harper's ghost hit them with a Light beam. Reuben felt himself and his captor yanked through space, surrounded by glowing particles. Then they were in the hanger, beside Harper's personal ship.

Reuben had never been transmatted before. Dizziness struck him, and for a moment he couldn't tell if he was hanging downward or falling upward. He tried to yell for help, but his voice didn't carry past the tape on his face.

Harper carried him up a set of stairs, into the ship's dark interior. He entered the cargo hold and laid Reuben on the floor.

"I should really stick a knife in you," Harper told him. "But there's plenty of people in the Reef who will do the job for me." He departed and slammed the door behind him, leaving Reuben in darkness.

The Reef! Reuben's thoughts exploded in panic. He was being kidnapped and dragged to the Reef in the asteroid belt? And his father was on his way to the workshop, completely unaware that Reuben was now on an outbound ship.

As the engines rumbled to life, Reuben used his numb fingers to scrape the tape off his mouth. "Help!" he yelled, but his voice was drowned out by the engines.

He struggled to sit up, fighting the ropes and his lingering weakness. "Can't stay here," he panted aloud. "There's got to be something sharp around here. Got to be-"

Nearby, a jumble of blue lights flickered on. Reuben gasped. Riding alongside him in the hold was a Faraday mesh that had been tied into a lumpy bag. Inside it were about twenty ghosts. They were jammed together carelessly, lying backwards and upside down. But they were alive, their eyes blinking at Reuben.

He groaned. "You're the missing ghosts, aren't you?"

"Please, help us," several of them begged. "He's taking us to the Reef to sell us."

"He's doing the same to me," Reuben said, inching toward them. "How is this tied?"

The ghosts were packed too tightly to move, but they blinked upward, toward the top of the mesh. "Looks like rope," one of the uppermost ghosts reported.

Reuben leaned against the wall of the cargo hold and worked his way toward a standing position, inch by inch. His tied feet were numb, too, but he ought to be able to stand long enough to free the ghosts.

He was halfway up when the ship took off. The thrust knocked him down. He hit his face on the floor and his teeth cut his lip. Blood filled his mouth.

The sudden pain, combined with being tied up and barely recovering from electric shock, was too much. Reuben lay where he had fallen, pressed flat by the G-forces of the ascending ship, and cried. He wanted his mother and father, and to be safe at home, and not to be tossed out to whatever dreadful fate awaited him in the Reef.

"Hey, there," said a friendly voice at his ear. "Don't give up now."

Reuben turned his head. The ghost he had freed in the workshop had sneaked aboard, too. He floated a few inches away with a friendly expression.

"We're going to the Reef," Reuben said in despair.

"I know," the ghost said cheerfully. "Harper plans to sell all of us and live among the outer planets on the profits."

"Then free us!" yelled the ghosts in the mesh bag. "Why are you just sitting there?"

One of the ghosts shushed the others. "Shut up, idiots! Don't you see? This is important."

The ghosts quieted, shifting a little in the bag to watch the ghost and Reuben.

Reuben sat up and leaned against the bulkhead, struggling to dry his tears. "What are they talking about?"

"Don't you feel it?" the ghost said, floating in front of him. "Gracious me, Guardian, I don't even know your name."

"Reuben," the boy replied. "How do you know I'm a Guardian? My spark is really dim."

The ghost laughed and zipped in a circle. "I know! You were very hard to detect. Look at him!" he shouted to the other ghosts. "Isn't he glorious?"

"Glorious is hardly the word," a captive ghost said dryly. "The child is barely a Guardian at all."

"Wait." The ghost was awfully happy. And he had followed Reuben. And ... was he feeling the ghost's Light? Reuben frowned and beckoned with one finger. "Come back here a minute."

The ghost returned. Reuben cupped his hands under him and drew him close to his face, where he could study the diamond-shaped pupil.

The ghost radiated a living warmth, like a campfire's flame. But Reuben felt it inside him, not on his skin. Within the ghost's eye, he seemed to see the dark water receding, changing into a vast sky filled with clouds. The sun shone dazzling on the clouds, driving away the darkness and the fear of the endless deep.

Reuben leaned his forehead against the ghost's shell. A warm, homelike peace spread through him. He wasn't alone anymore. "You're my ghost, aren't you?"

"Yes," the ghost whispered. "And you're my Guardian. I knew it from the second we looked into each other's eyes."

Reuben gazed into the blue eye again. "I'm so glad I found you."

"You found me?" the ghost laughed, backing away. "More like, I found you!" He opened his shell, expanding into a sphere of Light. Then he bathed Reuben in a powerful beam of concentrated energy, pouring his own essence into him, bonding their souls. Reuben leaned against the bulkhead as the Light washed through him in waves of joy. He had longed for his own ghost, and now he had one. He barely knew this ghost, and yet his very Light was warm, and friendly, and kind, and full of laughter.

The Light faded. The ghost closed his shell with a sigh. "Reuben, my Guardian. Oh, we're going to have so much fun together." He flew around Reuben, healing his cut lip and numb hands.

"What's your name?" Reuben asked.

"Don't have one," the ghost said. "I could never find one I liked. What would you call me?"

"Diamond," Reuben said. "That's the shape of your eye."

The ghost halted in front of him, gazing at him in silence. Then he laughed and said to the other ghosts, "Do you hear that? First try, my Guardian picks the perfect name. Diamond. Pretentious and over the top, just like me. All right! We shall be Reuben and Diamond, and we'll destroy the Darkness together."

"Great." Reuben waved his tied hands. "Now, can you untie me? Before we get to the Reef?"

"Even at near light speed, it takes eight hours to get there," Diamond reassured him. "Now, let me see." The ghost turned his attention to the ropes. He examined them from every angle. Then he flew back to Reuben's face and chuckled. "Do you have visions, by any chance? Sense things nobody else notices?"

"Yes," Reuben said hesitantly. "I ... keep thinking I'm falling into deep water. Except just now, when I looked at you. Then it was a sunny sky."

All the ghosts in the bag exclaimed in shock and wonder. "The Deeps! And the Sky? He's seen them both? Diamond, you lucky ghost!"

"If I could hug you, I would," Diamond said, emoting a smile. "You're a warlock. And you'll be a Light-kicking powerful warlock by the time you're grown. Now, listen carefully." The ghost flew close to Reuben. "I can help you call on the Light. I want you to think about fire."

"Fire?" Reuben said. "Wouldn't that be dangerous aboard a ship?"

"Very dangerous," Diamond said with a giddy laugh. "But you're only using a little. Think about a sword made of fire, all golden and glowing. Imagine its fire licking across your hands without hurting you. Because it's yours, a gift to you from the Traveler."

It was easy to imagine such a thing with the ghost describing it. Even better, Reuben felt it as part of the radiant happiness Diamond was pouring into him. He took ahold of that feeling and pulled. And the fiery sword appeared in his hands.

The ropes binding his wrists burned away. Reuben pressed the sword to the ropes around his ankles. He didn't even cut them - the blade seared through the ropes on its own. Laughing, he leaped to his feet, the fire licking over his clothes without harming them, and cut the rope holding the mesh bag shut.

It sagged open. The ghosts swarmed out, spinning their shells, flicking themselves upright, darting here and there, until the air in the cargo hold was full of them.

"Stay here!" Reuben called to them. "We don't want Guardian Harper to know what's happening."

The sword and fire faded away. Reuben felt empowered and fierce, with Diamond floating at his shoulder.

The other ghosts turned to face him, the glow from their eyes illuminating the cargo hold.

"All right," Reuben said, "there's a bunch of us, and only two of Harper and his ghost. But he's a lot stronger than me, and he's probably armed. We need to overpower him and fly this ship back to Earth. Preferably without any of you getting killed. Any ideas how to do that?"

The ghosts bobbed and glanced at each other. "His ghost," several of them said. "If we can disable her, he'll surrender."

Reuben winced. "I know she's his, but I don't want to hurt a ghost. I watched one die already."

The ghosts muttered, "He saw one die? Who?"

Diamond said in a low voice, "Harper was experimenting with hiding us inside engrams. I made it through decryption. Bitty didn't."

The ghosts made angry noises.

Reuben added, "Guardian Harper has two other ghost engrams in his bag. We have to rescue them."

"And how do we do that?" a ghost snapped. "We still have to defeat a Guardian and his ghost. A Guardian who lied to us, kidnapped us, and experimented on us. He'll kill us by the truckload if we threaten him."

"I have Light," Reuben said. "But ... I'm not very good at it." He glanced at Diamond, who gave him a fond look.

"We don't have offensive capabilities," another ghost said. "We can manipulate electronics and heal our Guardians. That's all."

Reuben glanced around at the cloud of ghosts. "Don't you have a headlight function?"

All the ghosts flicked their lights on for a second. Reuben shielded his eyes. "Okay! Right! Headlights!"

"Oooo," Diamond exclaimed. "That gives me an idea. I think I know how to disable Harper's ghost and him at the same time. But it'll take careful planning." He turned to Reuben. "Another Light lesson. I want you to think about lightning."


	7. Chapter 7: Trap

Harper sat in the cockpit of his ship, hunched forward, watching his instrument panel. His ship had been repeatedly hailed by the Vanguard, and he hadn't answered. They must know he'd taken the kid. He was safely in near light speed for now, but there might be a welcoming committee at the Reef when he arrived. He chewed a thumbnail.

"Dana, we may have to alter course. Dump the kid and hide out somewhere."

"I told you this was a bad idea," his ghost muttered. "You don't kidnap a Guardian's child."

"I didn't plan to kill him, myself," Harper said, watching his screen as yet another call from the Vanguard went unanswered. "He's a good kid. But he saw what I was doing, so what choice do I have?"

"Not like this," Dana snapped. "I only agreed to cover for you because you wanted out of the Vanguard."

"Well, look at me," Harper said. "You know my limp can't be fixed. I'm a liability in combat, but the Vanguard wants to ship me to the front. I've got to raise enough capital to survive off Earth, and selling engrams in the Reef looked foolproof."

"Engrams with ghosts inside!" Dana exclaimed. "And now a human child you're considering terminating? Kidnapping is bad enough without adding in the murder of an innocent. The Darkness will devour you alive."

Harper had bigger worries than the Darkness. A new message appeared on his screen. "U R DUM HAHA."

He pointed at the screen. "Who sent this?"

Dana blinked in astonishment. "That's a local code. Did one of the captive ghosts escape?"

"Impossible," Harper muttered. "That Faraday mesh is flawless."

Another message appeared. "U SUK HAHAHA."

The sheer juvenile trolling of this, added to Harper's stress level, aroused his temper. "Go see who's doing that," he growled. "If it's the kid, I'll fry him to a crisp."

"He's tied up, remember?" Dana said acidly. But she flew out of the cockpit, down the ship's short corridor, and down a spiral staircase to the cargo hold.

Harper waited for her report, chewing his thumbnail to the quick. Minutes ticked by. Dana didn't return.

"Dana?" he thought. She was close by and should hear him. But there was only silence.

Another message appeared. "UR GHOST IS DUM HAHA."

Harper's nervous anger flashed into rage. He leaped out of the pilot seat and stamped down the corridor toward the stairs. "I swear, kid, if you've laid a finger on my ghost, you will die." He drew his sidearm and clattered down the spiral staircase.

A ghost floated at the bottom of the stairs. For a second he thought it was Dana. Then it said, "Oh, hello."

"You're the one trolling me!" Harper exclaimed. He snatched at the ghost, who vanished.

"Dummy," the ghost said from nowhere. "If you and your ghost are down here, who's driving?"

Harper didn't answer. He threw open the door to the cargo bay.

Pitch darkness greeted him. "Dana?" he called. Without his ghost's headlight, he couldn't see, and the light was at the far end of the hold. He'd have to stumble across his own cargo to reach it.

"Reuben, did you take my ghost?"

The boy replied from somewhere nearby, "I'm tied up, sir. I can't catch ghosts."

Incongruously, Reuben snorted, and giggled with someone else. Another ghost?

Their laughter grated on Harper's frayed nerves. He aimed his sidearm toward their voices, but hesitated. While the muzzle flash would provide light, the bullet might pierce the hull and vent the ship's atmosphere. The forces of hyperspace would proceed to tear the ship to shreds.

"Dana!" he called again.

"I'm here," she said, sounding annoyed. "You're not going to like what's happening."

"Are you hurt?"

"No. But we deserve this."

With that, light blazed to life, blinding Harper. He yelped and covered his eyes.

Nineteen ghosts had ignited their headlights at once, aiming them directly at his face.

Harper snarled and swiped at them with the butt of his gun. He felt it connect with several delicate ghosts. They reeled backward, their lights going dark. "If you ghosts plan to attack me, you'll regret it! How did you get loose?"

He glimpsed Reuben sitting beside the door, holding a bundle of metallic mesh in his lap. Dana's eye glowed from inside.

The brat was not only free, he had released the captive ghosts and captured Harper's ghost in the Faraday mesh.

Harper lost what little control he had left. He aimed his sidearm at Reuben.

The ghosts turned off their lights.

In pitch darkness, Harper fired at the spot where Reuben had been. Five, six, seven times.

Something grabbed his leg. Before Harper could shake it off, a full-power arc charge blasted into him. His body convulsed, every muscle tensing, and crashed to the floor. That couldn't be the kid, could it? That felt as powerful as any adult Guardian in the Crucible. Then his thoughts fled in the face of pain, then unconsciousness.

* * *

Reuben had dove to the floor as Harper shot at him, but a bullet still caught him in the side. His cry of pain was drowned out by the clamor of gunfire in a small space.

"Get him," Diamond said in his head. "I'll heal you on the way."

Diamond was invisible, but his healing beam still worked. Warmth cascaded through the wound. Groaning, Reuben crawled toward Harper, dragging the mesh with Dana in it.

"Lightning," Diamond told him. "Arc bolts that seek the easiest path to ground. Pull them from your Light and direct them at your enemy."

Pain made him desperate. Reuben grabbed Harper's leg and pushed every bit of Light-powered lightning he had into him.

Blue bolts of electricity crackled over Harper's body. It only lasted a few seconds, but it dropped Harper to the floor, where he lay without moving.

The other ghosts turned their lights back on. "Nice job," one said. "He won't wake up for a while."

Other ghosts were busy healing the ones Harper had damaged.

Reuben gulped as he stared at his teacher. "I'm sorry," he said to the ghost in the mesh. "He tried to kill me. I had to hurt him."

Dana looked at him through the mesh. "You could have killed me, too."

"You're a ghost," Reuben said. He couldn't explain why he didn't want to harm a ghost - defenseless things that they were. He picked up a piece of the rope that had bound his hands and tied it around the mesh, securely trapping Dana inside. Then he tied up Harper as best as he could. He took the sidearm and shoved it into a gap in a nearby cargo crate just to get rid of it. He wouldn't begin weapons training for another year.

The flock of ghosts swarmed out of the cargo hold and up to the cockpit. Reuben followed them, shaken and frightened at the magnitude of his own power.

"It's all right," Diamond said, popping into being beside him. "You did an amazing job. Nobody died, and no bullets made it through the hull. Not for lack of trying, though. That Guardian is an idiot."

"I almost killed him," Reuben said. "I could have, if I'd tried. And he shot me."

Diamond caught the tears in his voice. The ghost cuddled into Reuben's arms, and Reuben sat on the stairs and hugged him.

"Shh," Diamond said. "It's almost over, dear Guardian. I keep forgetting how young you are."

Reuben sat there for a few minutes, holding back the sobs that threatened to overwhelm him. His ghost's warm, steady Light slowly soothed away the panic. Diamond's love was a constant presence in his heart. Even in the chilly, unfamiliar harshness of a ship in space, this little Light connected him to all things good.

Reuben began to pull himself together. He didn't have time to cry - they had to turn the ship around and get home before Harper woke up.

As he concentrated on this, the ship lurched, and the artificial gravity failed. Reuben drifted into the air. "What happened?"

"We've dropped out of NLS," Diamond said. "Come on, let's get to the cockpit."

The cockpit was full of ghosts. Reuben swam through them, sending them tumbling about. The ghosts thought it was fun, many exclaiming, "Wheeeee!"

Some ghosts clustered around the instrument panel. Another group had found the shoulder bag with the two engram ghosts. Ghosts were capable of decoding low-level engrams, and they were arguing about it as Reuben entered.

Reuben grabbed the pilot's seat and pulled himself into it, bracing his feet under it. "What's going on?"

"We're turning the ship around," one ghost said.

"Oh look," said another ghost. "The Vanguard is calling."

Diamond flew forward. "I've got this. Watch and learn from a master!" He opened the channel.

"Vanguard to Guardian Harper," said a voice that sounded like it was holding back rising fury. "You have five minutes to respond before we deploy tactical fighters."

"I'm responding!" Diamond exclaimed. "But I'm not Harper."

"Identify yourself," the Vanguard official snapped.

"I'm a ghost," Diamond said. "I'm here with twenty-two others. We've taken control of Harper's ship."

The radio was silent.

"Hear that?" Diamond said to Reuben. "That was the sound of every mind in the Tower being blown."

"Or they're preparing to blow us up," another ghost said.

The Vanguard official said, "Where is Guardian Harper?"

"Tied up in the hold," Diamond said.

More silence.

"They're trying to figure out how we tied someone up when we don't have hands," one ghost said. A ripple of laughter spread among the ghosts.

After a moment, the Vanguard official said, "Is the boy Reuben aboard?"

"He's right here," Diamond said. "He's fine. He took out Harper, and he was amazing. He's my Guardian now, and-"

"Put the boy on," the Vanguard official interrupted.

Diamond gave Reuben a sheepish look. "Over to you, Guardian."

"I'm here," Reuben said, trying to sound grown-up.

"Reuben," said the official, sounding relieved. "Did Guardian Harper abduct you?"

"Yes sir," Reuben said, one hand finding Diamond and stroking him to give himself courage. "I saw him putting ghosts in a probability forge to turn them into engrams. He didn't want me telling anyone, so he tied me up and put me on his ship. He was going to sell me and the ghosts in the Reef."

"He what," said the official without inflection. "He - Traveler's Light." There was a short silence. "Reuben, your ship is no longer using the jump drive. Are you stranded?"

Reuben gave Diamond a questioning look. Diamond looked at the control panel ghosts.

"We're flying it for him," one of the ghosts told the radio. "Just setting course for Earth now. The physics are tricky because of our inertia."

"Right," said the official, sounding relieved. "If we see another course change, we'll send out fighters, assuming that Harper has regained control."

"Oh, that would be bad," said a ghost. "He'll kill us all."

"Hence the fighters," the official said. "We'll contact you every fifteen minutes."

"Affirmative," Reuben said.

The radio fell silent. The ghosts at the control panel muttered to each other. The ship fired its jets in a series of short bursts, and the stars wheeled outside the cockpit window as they changed course. Then the near light speed drive ignited, turning the stars into a smear of color. Artificial gravity pushed Reuben into the chair. The ghosts fell out of the air, and flew back up, laughing.

"Earth ETA: ninety minutes," one of the ghosts told Reuben. "Did you take Harper's gun?"

"Yes," Reuben said. "I mean, I took it away from him. I stuck it in a cargo crate."

The ghosts groaned. "He'll find it," another one said.

"My Guardian's not going back down there," Diamond said fiercely, flying in front of Reuben. "You lot phase down there and keep watch. Reuben's a child. He's seen enough violence for one day."

"Seems pretty capable to me," a ghost remarked.


	8. Chapter 8: Crash

Down on the floor, one of the engrams whooshed open, reforming into a ghost. It gave a weak, shuddering cry and dropped to the floor.

Reuben sprang out of the pilot's seat, landed beside the ghost, and scooped it up in both hands. The memory of the other ghost dying after encryption was hideously clear in his mind. "Please don't die," he whispered, cradling it. "Diamond, heal him."

Diamond and several other ghosts surrounded them, sweeping the ghost with healing beams. The sick ghost's eye flickered, perilously close to death.

"Please," Reuben whispered. "Hang on a little longer. Let me heal you, too." Warlocks could heal people, couldn't they? Reuben reached for the Light, as he had done twice before. But instead of fire or lightning, he reached for that warm, comforting feeling when Diamond had healed him.

Golden Light filled his hands, pouring outward in sparkles. Reuben pressed the sparkles into the ghost from multiple angles, painting the shell and core with them. The flickering eye blinked up at him. "Are you ... my Guardian?" the ghost whispered.

"No," Reuben said, smiling. "But I'll help you recover so you can find them."

"And I'm his ghost," Diamond exclaimed, flying down. "See. He's _my_ Guardian. I found him first."

"Yes, I'm sorry," the sick ghost said. "He's ... holding me."

"You're not supposed to touch unattached ghosts," Diamond whispered. "Gives them the wrong idea."

"He's hurt!" Reuben exclaimed. "Give me a minute." He pressed more Light into the ghost.

The blue eye stopped flickering. The ghost slowly floated into the air, turning its shell segments this way and that. "I think ... I'll survive," he said to Reuben. "Thank you. You're very kind."

Reuben looked around to find every ghost in the room watching in silence. His face grew warm. "What?"

"You care," said a ghost in a small voice. "About ghosts who aren't yours."

Reuben didn't know what to say, so he picked up the second engram. "We'd better open this one, too."

He set it on the floor. Several ghosts flew down and played their beams over the white engram. It flickered, then changed shape with a whoosh, becoming a ghost. The ghost gave a terrified shriek and darted upward into the crowd of its siblings. "Not again! Don't send me through the forge again! Hide me!"

The other ghosts reassured it that it was mostly safe, and updated it on what had been happening.

Reuben whispered to Diamond, "Do you think Guardian Harper is awake yet?"

"Light forbid," Diamond muttered.

"He's a warlock," Reuben said. "He can burn off the ropes the same way I did."

Diamond flew off down the hall. "I'll check on him. Be right back."

Reuben waited. The other ghosts milled about uneasily.

Diamond shot back into the room, his eye a frightened pinprick. "He's awake and has his ghost. They're talking about whether or not to kill all the ghosts or only Reuben."

"Phase, all of you," Reuben said at once. "Hide wherever you can. Don't let him see you."

The ghosts vanished in swirls of light particles. In two seconds the cockpit was seemingly empty.

"What about you?" Diamond said, turning to Reuben.

Reuben drew a deep breath. "Guardian Harper doesn't know I have a ghost. So ... so let him kill me. And ... and just resurrect me later. Let him think he won."

"No!" Diamond exclaimed. "Reuben, please, no. You're a child. You shouldn't have to ... have to experience a resurrection yet."

"My friend Connor did," Reuben said, trying to sound brave, while his insides were trying to curl up and hide under his rib cage. "He crashed a glider off the City wall."

"Listen to me," Diamond said, flying right up to Reuben's face. "If he kills you, he'll turn the ship around. The Vanguard will send fighters. If this ship isn't destroyed outright, it'll be damaged. Your spark can only last a few hours without a resurrection. A few days, maybe. If your body is floating in vacuum, your spark will extinguish before I can resurrect you."

Reuben sat on the floor, suddenly very cold. He shivered. "What do I do?"

Down the stairwell came the sound of the cargo door latch opening.

Diamond stared down the hallway, then looked at Reuben. His voice shook. "I want you to think about darkness."

Reuben cringed. "Do I have to?"

"That's how you use void Light," Diamond whispered. "Think about shadows and quiet, dark places. Think about nighttime. You're going to blend with the shadows and pass unseen through this ship. Hide in the back of the cargo hold."

Footsteps clattered on the spiral staircase.

"Go!" Diamond whispered, and disappeared.

Reuben tried to focus on his ghost's words. But instead of void Light, all he could think of was falling toward the dark sea, the waves rising to slap him out of the sky and drag him into the depths.

"Don't!" Diamond cried in his head.

Guardian Harper arrived at the top of the stairs. He looked up the corridor, straight at Reuben.

Reuben's focus shifted to Harper. Like a mouse watching a cobra, he sat frozen, unable to think, only watching his enemy draw closer and closer.

"You little bastard," Harper snarled. He hadn't found his weapon after all, but lightning crackled around his fists. "Tried to kill me with arc power? I'll show you what it really feels like. Then I'm kicking your body out the airlock."

The dark sea drew ever closer in Reuben's mind. He tried to hold back from it, tried to reach for the sky, tried to find his Light. But all he found was sick fear.

Then Diamond shoved his way in, a blinding point of Light in the dark vision. "This way," he whispered, and spiraled sideways.

Reuben followed him and sank into the shadows. His body vanished into a shadow state. Moving quick as thought, he passed by Harper, down the corridor, down the stairs, and into the cargo hold. He passed through the side of a crate and found an empty space.

He emerged from the shadow state, panting and shivering. Cold sweat drenched his clothes. The space inside the crate was barely big enough for his body, and he didn't care. Reuben curled up and listened for pursuit.

Harper cursed. Then he searched up and down the ship and through the hold. But Reuben had warped inside a sealed crate, and Harper was reluctant to open every crate in the hold. Eventually he returned to the cockpit.

"Diamond," Reuben thought in despair. "He'll turn the ship around and the Vanguard will kill us."

"He can't," Diamond said with grim humor. "The other ghosts were listening. Half of them are hiding in the electrical equipment. They've taken over the ship's systems. Harper is locked out with triple encryption."

"How long until we reach Earth?"

"Less than an hour." Diamond swept Reuben with a fresh healing beam, which was comforting, even though Reuben wasn't exactly hurt. Then the ghost appeared inside the crate with him, in the few inches of space between Reuben and the side. Reuben clasped the ghost under his chin.

"Why do you envision a dark ocean?" Diamond whispered.

"I keep having visions and dreams about it," Reuben whispered back. "I thought it was the Traveler trying to talk to me. But I'm so scared of it."

"What you're seeing is called the Deeps," Diamond told him. "It represents the Darkness. I don't think the Traveler would show you that."

"But why do I keep seeing it?"

Diamond didn't answer for a long moment, thinking. "When did it start?"

"When I first thought Guardian Harper served the Darkness. I overheard him fighting with his ghost, and I ... just sensed something off. A few weeks ago, I think."

"That's when he lured in us ghosts and captured us," Diamond said. A note of wonder crept into his voice. "You knew. You sensed the evil in Harper's heart. That's why you keep seeing the Deeps - it's not the Traveler. It's Harper."

Relief spread through Reuben. He breathed a deep sigh and the tension left his muscles. "That must be it. That makes sense."

"You're not even fully grown yet," Diamond murmured. "But you already have premonitions this strong? Oh, I have the best Guardian." He snuggled a little closer. "The Traveler has blessed me! Reuben, no Darkness will conceal itself from you for long. I'll teach you to use Void Light. There's darkness and Darkness. One of them is natural and good. The other ... well, you're only ten. We have lots of time to deal with it later."

Reuben felt better than he had in weeks. Despite the cramped space and lack of fresh air, he held his ghost and dozed.

* * *

Reuben was falling toward the Deeps again. They roared and tossed beneath him, endlessly black and hungry. Reuben flailed in the air, helpless, trying to catch hold of anything to break his fall.

"It's a vision," he told himself. "It's trying to tell me something. What is it?"

As he concentrated, a ship passed beneath him, spiraling out of control toward the water. It crashed into the waves and exploded as if the water was made of stone.

That was Guardian Harper's ship.

* * *

He snapped awake. Diamond was gone, and the ship was angled downward, rattling and shaking as they reentered Earth's atmosphere. Gravity and g-force dragged at him.

Reuben pushed at the crate's sealed lid. It didn't budge. He kicked and thrashed, beginning to gasp with panic. He couldn't get out. How had he gotten in?

Diamond spoke inside his head. "Guardian, calm down. It's all right. Deep breaths."

Reuben tried to calm himself, but the crate had turned stifling and airless. He couldn't seem to draw a proper breath.

"Think of the darkness again," Diamond's soothing voice said. "Slip into the shadows, like I showed you."

The ghost had helped him slide sideways last time. Reuben tried multiple times before he managed to slip between dimensions. He zipped through the wall of the crate and reappeared in the cargo hold, sucking in breaths of fresh air. The g-forces of reentry immediately pushed him flat against the nearest crate.

"I can't come out or I'll get kicked around by gravity," Diamond told him. "We're headed for Earth, but not the Last City. Harper altered course that much. He's aiming to crash us into a lake."

That was what his vision had showed him. Reuben reached for his void Light and found it nearby, waiting at his fingertips. He could shift into shadow form and escape the ship before it crashed.

"Diamond," he said in his head, "tell the other ghosts to abandon ship. I can get off by shadow stepping."

"That's my Guardian," Diamond said. "If I get any more proud of you, my core will burst out of my shell." He fell silent a moment, then said, "The others are waiting until we're closer to the ground. I'll tell you when to shift and leave. Try to move closer to land before you shift back."

The g-forces lessened. Reuben was able to crawl to the nearest bulkhead, where he crouched beside it, holding his void Light ready, thinking of the moon and stars in a peaceful night sky.

"Ghosts are out," Diamond said. "Leave any time, Reuben."

Reuben shifted into shadow on his first try and slid through the ship's wall.

He emerged in the wind outside the falling ship and darted away from it. The world was blindingly bright, melting away his hold on anything shadowy. Reuben felt the Light slip away, felt himself harden into reality, felt himself begin to fall in earnest.

The ship was blazing toward the ground, engines roaring and turbulence forming white trails behind the wing tips. Reuben was flying off from it at an angle, toppling through the air in slow motion. The lake waited below, calm and blue, yet still as deadly as the black Deeps. It drew closer and closer as he plummeted.

"Reuben!" Diamond shouted in his head, over the roar of the wind. "Use your Light!"

Reuben tried to find the void Light, but it had abandoned him in the dazzling light of a cloudless afternoon. Desperately he reached for the other kinds of Light - fire and lightning. He found them, waiting for him. Reuben grabbed them both.

A fireball laced with lightning burst out of his hands. The kickback sent him flying sideways, across the lake, toward the trees on the far side. But he was still descending, and the lake would claim him first. Reuben reached for the Light again and hurled another fireball, this one aimed downward. It kicked him back into the air, regaining lost altitude. But this time he felt his wrist snap.

"Please use the shadows," Diamond begged. "Please, Reuben-"

Reuben tried to reach the void Light, but the pain combined with his own terminal velocity drove it from his mind. He crashed through the trees, branches breaking under his flight. Finally he hit the ground and bounced to a halt.

To his vague surprise, he wasn't dead. But his body was twisted in unnatural ways, and his brain was only just beginning to register how much pain he was in.

"I'm sorry, Diamond," he said aloud, staring at the sky through the trees. "I couldn't do it. I'm sorry, Diamond. I couldn't."

"Shh," his ghost said, appearing and flying around him. "It's all right. I'm here." His healing beam seemed to make little progress against Reuben's extensive injuries.

It seemed to Reuben that it was very important that he convey to Diamond how sorry he was. But he drifted away into unconsciousness, still repeating his apology.

* * *

Reuben's eyes were open long before he was awake. He gradually became aware of Diamond floating above him, his blue eye concerned.

"Sorry," Reuben whispered.

"Don't say it," Diamond said. "You've said it a million times already. I understand, really. Can you move?"

Reuben flexed his arms and legs, found they worked without hurting, and slowly sat up. His body felt fine, but his mind was still dazed. He climbed to his feet and simply walked toward the edge of the lake without thinking about it. Diamond followed him, spinning his segments in a worried way.

Harper's ship was nothing but floating wreckage strewn across the surface of the lake. Reuben stared at it for a while. Then he sat on the bank and did nothing.

"Reuben," Diamond said, "I've just contacted your father's ghost. They're on their way here right now."

Reuben nodded.

The pair waited on the bank. Diamond watched his Guardian and began to pace back and forth in the air.

When a ship arrived and landed in a nearby clearing, Reuben didn't stir. When his father arrived at a run and scooped him up, Reuben didn't look at him or acknowledge his presence, only kept staring at the debris on the lake.

"Who are you?" Charles said, glaring at Diamond.

"I'm his ghost," Diamond said, cowering a little.

Charles looked at his catatonic son. "Why haven't you healed him?"

"I did!" Diamond exclaimed. "But I can't heal shock. He's technically one hundred percent well."

Charles snorted and headed for his ship, Diamond flying close behind. "How are you his ghost?" Charles asked.

"How?" Diamond repeated. "Because he's my Guardian. He rescued me from Harper along with the others."

Charles didn't answer. He carried Reuben into the ship and set him gently in the copilot' seat. As he strapped him in, Reuben said suddenly, "I didn't fly Harper's ship, Dad. The ghosts did."

"Oh, right," Charles said. He glared at Diamond and jerked his head at Reuben.

Diamond landed in Reuben's lap and blinked up at him. Reuben gazed at him for a long time before slowly picking up the ghost and wrapping his arms around him.

* * *

When Reuben awoke the next morning, he was in his bed at home, but didn't know how he'd gotten there.

He lay there, gazing at his familiar bedside lamp, trying to decide if being kidnapped had been a weird dream. And the ghost! Had he dreamed that his ghost had found him at last? Reuben looked eagerly around his room, expecting to see Diamond floating nearby, or maybe perched on his dresser. But there was no sign of him. Maybe Reuben had only dreamed him, after all. He breathed a crestfallen sigh.

Something moved beneath his pillow. Reuben sat up with a gasp.

Diamond wiggled out from under the pillow and floated into the air, blinking sleepily. "Good morning, Guardian. Feeling better?"

"Who are you?" Reuben asked experimentally. He had to see if his dreamlike memories matched reality, especially if this ghost was really his.

However, this question terrified Diamond. He jumped, his shell opening a little. "You don't remember me?" he whispered. "Reuben ... I swear I healed you. I'm your ghost. You're my Guardian. You freed me from Guardian Harper. Do you remember that much? Light, what do I do if my Guardian doesn't know me?"

Reuben held out a hand, smiling. Diamond flew up to hover above his palm, his blue eye anxiously studying him.

"I wasn't sure if it was all real," Reuben said. "I remember you, Diamond. I could never forget you. How did we get home?"

Diamond told him. Reuben climbed out of bed and got dressed as the ghost talked. Diamond's story matched what he remembered, except for the part at the end. He sort of remembered bailing out of Harper's ship and using Light powers in midair, but after that he didn't remember anything.

"Are the other ghosts all right?" he blurted, interrupting Diamond's account.

"Yes, actually," Diamond said. "Most of them have gone back to seeking Guardians. But a small group - including the engram ghosts - are hunting Harper. He escaped into the woods, but he won't get far."

Reuben grinned fiercely. "Good. He was going to kill me."

"And you were going to let him!" Diamond exclaimed. "I know I can resurrect you, Guardian, but death should only ever be a last resort."

Reuben grinned and bumped his forehead against the ghost's shell. "Good thing you can teach me this. Why do you call me Guardian all the time? Why not just use my name?"

"I like calling you that," Diamond replied. "Do you know how long I've waited to call someone Guardian? Guardian Guardian Guardian. I can't get enough of it."

"Well, I've wanted a ghost forever, so we're even."

At this point, the bedroom door opened, and Reuben's mother looked in. "You're up! How do you feel?" Naomi bustled in and hugged him.

It was a relief to feel her arms around him, holding the terrible loneliness at bay, and the fear of being sent to the Reef as a prisoner. "I'm okay, Mom," he said. "But I'm really glad to be home."

She gazed into his face, stroking his hair. "You look better. Thank the Light for that ghost of yours." She smiled at Diamond. "Come on, Reuben, breakfast is ready."

Reuben and Diamond followed her into the kitchen. Despite the early hour, there was no sign of Charles.

"Where's Dad?"

Naomi's smile faded into a scowl. "He's hunting Harper with Guardian Jayesh. Those ghosts are helping."

"Ooo, vengeance," Diamond said. "I saw his face when he picked us up."

"Harper will stand trial for his crimes," Naomi said. "No Guardian should ever do what he did. But go ahead and eat, Reuben. The doctor said for you to keep very quiet today."

Reuben devoured his breakfast with a gleeful sense of vindication. His father and Jayesh taking down Harper? What a fight that would be.

"Will they hurt his ghost?" he blurted.

Naomi gave him an odd look. "I doubt it. They want to catch him, not kill him. But why do you care? Wasn't his ghost complicit?"

"She never wanted any of it," Reuben said. "She fought Harper, even said they deserved to be caught. After seeing that one ghost die ..." He stroked Diamond's shell. "I never want to see that again."

"What ghost died?" Naomi asked, sitting at the table with him.

Reuben poured out his story to his mother, with Diamond adding remarks now and then. As he talked, Naomi grew pale with anger. She said nothing until Reuben finished, and Diamond explained how hurt Reuben had been.

"You were magnificent, Reuben," she said softly. "But Harper ... I hope his punishment is very harsh. Very. Harsh." She clenched her fists against the table.

Reuben finished his breakfast. His mother's protective rage only served to make him feel safer. As he finished, he asked, "Could Connor come over? I want him and Varan to meet Diamond."

"I'll ask Kari," Naomi said. "She'll probably agree, seeing as nothing about this situation is normal."

Connor arrived half an hour later, bursting with curiosity and bearing a huge plate of cookies. The boys ate cookies and talked for the next two hours, their ghosts chasing each other around the kitchen and under the table.

"How did you pull this off?" Connor asked.

"Pull what off?" Reuben said.

Connor gestured at him. "You never want to do anything dangerous! But you're the one out rescuing ghosts and getting kidnapped and jumping out of ships. All I did was wreck my glider. How did you plan it?"

"I didn't," Reuben replied. "I just wanted to find the missing ghosts. Being kidnapped was really scary! I never want it to happen again."

Diamond flew to him and hovered over his shoulder.

"And you found your ghost," Connor added. "Which is awesome, because now we can really have fun."

"I found him, you mean," Diamond corrected.

Suddenly Varan flew up beside Diamond. "They've sighted Harper."

Silence fell as they watched Connor's ghost. She stared into space, receiving information from Charles and Jayesh's ghosts.

"He's keeping to the deep woods," Varan reported. "They're tracking him by sound. His ghost is obscuring her own signature so they can't trace her. Smart."

"Get him, Dad," Reuben whispered.

Varan kept listening. "They've split up. Warlock heading straight in, making lots of noise. Hunter circling to flank. Harper's woodcraft isn't good, he won't see it coming."

Reuben waited in suspense. Beside him, Connor nervously rolled and unrolled a piece of paper.

"Harper doubled back and is attacking Jayesh!" Varan exclaimed. "Lightning and fire all over the place. They're setting the woods on fire."

Connor leaned forward, gazing desperately at his ghost. "Who's winning?"

"I can't tell. Jayesh is hurt. He's hiding while his ghost heals him. Sounds like Harper's doing the same thing. Everything's quiet."

Connor blanched, his brown skin turning yellowish.

Varan turned in midair, as if examining the conflict. "Charles is moving to intercept Harper. A ghost is pointing the way. I can't quite see ... no, there he is. Harper is hiding behind a rock outcropping. Ouch! He's hitting Charles with lightning."

"Dad's an arc strider," Reuben said, clenching his fists.

"I see now!" Varan exclaimed. "The lightning only powered up Charles. He's hitting back. It's chaos. I can't see what's ..." She trailed off, blinking, twirling her shell. "Ooh, your father is so angry, Reuben. He's shouting about what Harper did to you."

Reuben and Connor exchanged nervous glances.

"Harper's trying to run for it," Varan said. "Looks like your father has him terrified. And ... no, there's Jayesh. They've got Harper down. Looks like the fight's over - Harper's not moving anymore. They're tying his hands."

"Good," Reuben said through his teeth. He slumped in his chair. "Do you think he'll go to jail?"

"Guardians don't go to jail," Connor pointed out. "They have to do community service in the City. I asked Dad about it one time."

Reuben didn't know what Harper's fate ought to be. On one hand, he had been a good teacher. On the other hand, he had put Diamond through a probability forge and tried to kidnap and murder Reuben. Mostly, Reuben never wanted to see him again.

He beckoned to Diamond, who flew to him and floated above his hand. They gazed at each other, the young Guardian and his little light.

"At least I found you," Reuben murmured to him.

Diamond gazed at him fondly. "It makes that probability forge experience worth it. I died multiple times in that machine. All the probabilities. I'm glad this is the probability that won. You were nearby, making choices, and that changed my future."

Reuben didn't quite understand this, but he smiled and stroked Diamond's shell. "I'm glad you made it."

"I'm glad _you_ made it," Diamond whispered. He glanced shyly at Connor, but Connor was murmuring to Varan and paying them no attention. "I was so afraid for you back on that ship. I know you're a Guardian, but I can't stand seeing you hurt."

"Well, you don't have to worry about that," Reuben assured him. "We'll be dealing with exciting things like homework from now on."

"Homework with our Guardian powers!" Connor chimed in. "My Dad will have to teach us, now. Or Mom. Did you know my mom used to be Crucible champion?" His eyes sparkled.

Reuben gave him a wide-eyed look. "No way."

"Yes way!" Connor grinned. "I'm going to play the Crucible when I'm old enough. And I'm going to be the champion every season."

Reuben gave Connor's chubby frame a skeptical glance. "Well, Diamond says I'm going to be a really powerful warlock. I don't know what kind of Guardian I'll be."

"The kind that helps people," Diamond said with conviction. "The best kind."

And Reuben agreed with him.

The end


End file.
